LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



ANENT 



THE 



NORTH AMERICAN 




CONTINENT. 




"What is that hath been ? the same thing shall be . . . .' 



LONDON: 
WILLIAM BIDGrWAY, 169, PICCADILLY, W. 
MAECH. 
1864. 



Price Sixpence. 



ANENT 

THE NORTH AMERICAN CONTINENT. 



Three years ago a great Republic flourished across 
the Atlantic, whose .citizens flattered themselves that 
the nineteenth century would witness the amalgama- 
tion under one government of the divers races in- 
habiting their continent— from the icy regions to 
the Isthmus of Panama. 

Three months later a provincial disturbance in the 
harbour of Charleston dispelled their dreams of em- 
pire; yet they might as well have believed that their 
descendants would govern the tidal flow of the ocean, 
as that their hemisphere would not be subjected to 
Nature's laws. 

History teaches that both Roman and Carlovin- 
gian empires were dismembered in consequence of 
the inability of their central governments to exercise 
a beneficial sway over increasing populations, en- 
lightened by civilisation, and determined to localize 
the supreme direction of their affairs. 

Before many years have elapsed the North 
American Continent will be occupied by a gToup of 
Commonwealths, every one possessing its autonomy, 
and capable of defending its territory against home 
or foreign aggressors. 

A 2 



4 



It would be a patriotic policy on the part of 
native Americans, Canadians, and Mexicans, to 
facilitate the formation, in Geographical Divisions, of 
as many States as the interests of their citizens 
might require; and, whilst reserving* to each its 
complete independence in regard to political economy, 
to form one confederation, with uniform currency, 
common customs union, postal, telegraphic, steam- 
boat and railroad communication, banking* and 
commercial privileges. 

The rig-ht to hold property, and to be naturalized 
in the various Divisions, should be secured to natives 
desirous of changing* their domiciles. 

There is still time for such friendly arrangements 
between the two sections of the late United States, 
but the eleventh hour has struck ; and, were the 
present Americans wise in their generation, they 
would avail themselves of the opportunity, and not 
run the risk of seeing- their Continent divided into 
as many hostile republics, as is that of South 
America. 

The leading- maritime Powers of Europe oug-ht to 
remove whatever obstacles the Americans find in- 
superable towards the attainment of these objects ) 
and, to begin with, they should take an active part 
in settling- the questions at issue between the 
American bellig-erents, a speedy solution to w r hich 
can alone prevent the annihilation, for thirty years 
to come, of their respective sources of prosperity, a 



5 



result as detrimental to the interests of the Old 
World as to those of the New. 

In the United States no one has the courage to 
proclaim openly that the Union can never he re- 
stored — that North and South should separate into 
two divisions, and that a third subdivision, if re- 
quired, should be allowed to take place for the sake 
of restoring- peace. 

In the Confederate States, the Government,, in- 
stead of using" all the energies of the people to de- 
fend its natural frontiers, and to reconquer those 
portions of its territory invaded by the Northern 
army, is struggling" to maintain a nominal suzerainty 
over the country to the west of the Mississippi, 
which, for extent and sparseness of population, may 
be most aptly compared with 500,000 square miles 
of Australian plains, where the traveller falls in with 
one or two shepherd farms on a forenoon ride. 

The truth is that the Northern and Southern 
governments are both striving- to attain an imperial 
future for their respective sections \ the former for a 
country peopled by freemen and black serfs, the 
latter for one inhabited by white men and Negro 
slaves. The lot of the unfortunate Blacks is indeed 
deserving- of commiseration ; for, under either sys- 
tem, they are to be employed as " hewers of wood 
and drawers of water " to their pale-faced country- 
men, in scecula sceculorum. 

When we emancipated our West Indian Negroes 
the masters were few, the slaves were many, the 



6 



islands small, the fleets and soldiery of England 
were at hand, if required, to protect the black 
people in their newly-acquired rights, and the 
result was a disastrous failure to the moral and 
social interests of all concerned. None of those 
conditions exist in respect to slavery on the North 
American continent. From Chesapeake Bay, in a 
direct line to the confluence of the Rio Puercos with 
the Rio Grande, from the south-eastward of that line 
to the shores of the Mexican Gulf and the Atlantic 
Ocean, the soil is principally adapted for the labour of 
the African race alone, while within these limits is 
contained an area sufficiently larg-e to employ in its 
cultivation fifty millions of that class. As the 
white and coloured American races have heretofore 
increased in relative proportions, we may assume 
that they will do so in future, and that senseless 
abolition howls, from whichever side of the ocean 
they proceed, will not improve the lot of our 
swarthy fellow creatures, but rather make their 
latter condition worse than their first. 

At Richmond and Washington, in Tennessee and 
Virginia, the civil and military authorities are too 
seriously occupied to have leisure or inclination for 
projecting any plan for the extrication of their de- 
luded countrymen out of the slough of ruin and 
misery into which the manoeuvres of unscrupulous 
politicians have plunged them, and in which the 
interests of speculators, stockjobbers, army con- 
tractors, blockade-runners, and unprincipled adven- 



7 



turers, the sweepings of every clime, require that 
they should remain. Nor is it to be expected that 
any influential body of men, in either the Federal 
or Confederate States, will dare to advocate the 
cause of peaceful separation, and thus incur the ven- 
geance of despotic Governments, who employ their 
armed legions to crush political and military oppo- 
nents indiscriminately. 

Besides the moral, there is a material aspect of 
the American question. 

A venerable ex-President of the United States, at 
the time of a naval expedition to the Eastern seas, 
laid down the doctrine that the Americans were 
morally justified in forcing* the barbarian nations to 
open their ports, for the purpose of supplying 1 civi- 
lised nations with such commodities as the former 
possessed in superabundance, and the latter stood in 
need of. How, therefore, can the Northern prevent 
the Southern section of the late United States from 
supplying- the nations of the world with cotton ? 

Moreover, the greatest consumers of cotton goods 
are the middling', but especially the lower, classes 
in every country ; the bulk of cotton cloth made is 
of the inferior descriptions, and the cotton required 
for this is of the lower qualities. The principal cus- 
tomers can only buy largely when cloth is to be had 
cheap \ consequently, the consumption has been 
greatly affected by the rise in prices which scarcity 
of the raw material has produced during the last 
two years. 

Ten million hundred weights of raw cotton is re- 



8 



quired to keep the mills in Great Britain working* 
full time. One and a quarter pounds of Upland or 
Surat cotton is required to produce one pound of 
cotton yarn. The cost of manufacture amounts to 
from three to fourpence per pound for every pound 
of yarn. In consequence of the fluctuations in the 
prices of raw cotton, the difference between the cost 
and the price at which the yarn sells constitutes the 
only profit which the spinner can depend on. The 
profit of the power-loom weaver depends on the price 
he has to pay for the yarn, but generally the wealthy 
spinner, weaver, and printer, when combined under 
one association, procure a sale for their manufacture, 
at one time in the form of yarn, at another in that 
of cloths, whether unbleached, bleached, or printed ; 
and* the profits made on the cloths are often not 
larger than would have been made by the sale of 
the yarns. 

Fifty thousand bales, or two hundred thousand 
hundred weights of raw cotton, will every week be 
required to keep the mills working full time, on 
account of new mills and additions made to those 
previously existing since the cotton famine com- 
menced j and the following tables will convince the 
most sceptical of the improbability of a return of 
prosperity to Lancashire until there is enough of 
American cotton to supply not only ourselves but 
the world at large ; considering that, besides the 
quantity required for our own consumption, there 
ought to be two to three million cwts. always in 
stock at Liverpool. 



9 



TABLE A. 

Total Imports of Cotton into Great Britain during the follow- 
ing years approximately, in cwts. 

1861. 1862. 1863. 

From United States . . 7,300,000 100,000 100,000 

„ India 3,300,000 3,500,000 3,900,000 

„ Other quarters . . 600,000 1,100,000 2,000,000 

Cwts. . . 11,200,000 4,700,000 6,000,000 



TABLE B. 

Prices of Cotton, Tarn, and Cloth, during the following years, 
in Liverpool and Manchester. 
1861. 1864. 
Cotton, raw, mid. Upland Id. 26^. 

„ j, fair Surat . 5 d. 22d. 
40 Mule yarn 1) f per pound. 



} 



30 Water twist 

Printer, Cotton cloth, 6s. sterling 12s. sterling, per piece of 

29 yards, weighing 4 pounds. 

With these figures under our eyes, we cannot 
unreservedly accept the assurance that the mills 
will have sufficient cotton for four days and a half 
per week during* the present; and for six days per 
week throughout next year. 

Great Britain cannot be rendered independent of 
America for cotton for ten years to come; and; even 
if- India should replace America in this respect; it is 
not in our power to prevent the collapse which will 
take place there; and in other quarters; so soon as 



10 



the American war is ended, as cotton will be grown 
to as great an extent in the Southern Confederacy 
hereafter as heretofore. 

The States of Alabama and of Mississippi, in I860, 
produced together as much cotton as the whole 
amount of American cotton imported into Great 
Britain, on an average, during each of the three 
previous years. These States, which possess millions 
of acres of virgin soil, if peopled with a sufficient 
number of Negroes, either working as slaves or on 
General Banks' new system, would produce as much 
cotton as the whole w r orld can use ; and this alone 
will give some idea of the supplies that may again be 
forthcoming from the American Continent. 

But the protraction of this war does not benefit 
any kind of honest industry on either side of the 
Atlantic. The shipbuilding interest is exposed to 
disagreeable uncertainties, to which the cases pend- 
ing before the Law Courts sufficiently testify; and no 
trade is favourably affected, except the manufacture 
of cannon, firearms, shot, shell, and other munitions 
of war ; and it is lamentable that colossal fortunes 
should be made, in a Christian land, by furnishing 
weapons to enable thirty millions of our race to de- 
stroy one another amidst the horrors of civil war. < 

Under these deplorable circumstances, it is well to 
remember that there does not, and cannot, exist on 
the American Continent any moral force adequate 
to arrest the march of events. Even supposing that 
the Northern and Southern governments desired to 



11 



terminate hostilities, upon whose behalf could the 
former acknowledge the latter, or what authority 
would the latter possess to accept terms at the hands 
of the former ? The people can grant the requisite 
authority, but the respective Governments are power- 
less to lead them, even were they inclined to make 
the essay. To reason with them in their present 
choleric condition would be as profitless as to 
harangue the inmates of Bedlam *, whilst as for 
waiting until they are likely to become reasonable 
hearers, the time would be as profitably spent watch- 
ing* for the waters to ascend, instead of descending, 
the Falls of Niagara. 

The sole means for restoring peace to the American 
people consists in the simultaneous a Recognition of 
the Government at Richmond, as representing the 
Southern Confederacy," by France, Great Britain, 
Spain, Portugal, and Mexico. The sooner this 
step is taken, the sooner the war will be terminated; 
and until it be taken the war will not be ended. 

In conclusion, the principal objections hitherto 
advanced against Recognition may be, without diffi- 
culty, successfully answered. 

1. From all quarters we hear that public opinion 
demands the maintenance of the strictest neutrality. 
But this policy has displeased both belligerents, and 
may, at times, be justly regarded by each as one- 
sided. After all, what is "public opinion" but a 
convenient term for u public feeling," obeying an im- 



12 



pulse generally derived from a party view of a 
popular question, guided by the ministry of the day ? 

2. Although foreign nations ought not to assist 
either belligerent with material force, yet they are 
bound to accept the conclusions arrived at by such 
States in the Southern Confederacy as have bona 
Jide totally emancipated themselves from, and re- 
pudiate the sway of, the Government at Washington. 
Has any eminent American or European statesman 
or lawyer satisfactorily disproved the right of seces- 
sion, claimed by certain States which were formerly 
members of the Federal Union? Will any one deny 
the right of the greater or of the minor German 
Powers to decline remaining members of the German 
Confederation ? And will any one undertake to 
prove that the States of Alabama or Pennsylvania, 
of Massachusetts or South Carolina, are not as truly 
sovereign, independent States as Hanover or Hesse 
Cassel ? 

3. The simple act of Eecognition by the two great 
Maritime Powers of Europe, even if they acted 
without the others, would bring to the surface, both 
in North and South, the giant peace parties, who 
would force their respective Governments to con- 
clude an armistice, to appoint delegates, and to 
nominate commissioners for settling the terms of 
separation, whereby ample territory could be secured, 
both to the United States and to the Southern Con- 
federacy. 

4. No one can now affect ignorance as to what 



13 



States form, and what constitutes the frontiers of, 
the Southern Confederacy; but if any person desires 
such information, let him study the bulletin of the 
French Moniteur, or the leading* articles of the 
London morning- and evening- daily press. 

5. Is it probable that the Northern States would, 
at the same time, carry on a war ag-ainst Great 
Britain, France and the Southern Confederacy? 
And is it not nearly certain that, peace being- once 
re-established among- them, the Americans, like the 
Europeans after 1815, will have had enoug'h of war 
for one g-eneration at least ? But supposing- that 
they did declare war, how long- would Philadelphia, 
New York, and Boston bear being* blockaded? How 
many American vessels would run throug-h an 
auxiliary blockading* squadron, plying' between Hali- 
fax, Bermuda, and the Bahamas? How many 
American privateers would be found in the Eastern 
Seas, or in the Pacific Ocean, if Great Britain and 
France declared that their officers would, if captured, 
be liable to transportation for life, and their crews to 
hard labour, seeing that privateering*, buccaneering* 
and piracy are equally opposed to the spirit of modern 
civilisation? If Great Britain has £120,000,000 
sterling* at all times afloat on the waters, there is at 
least the half of this sum invested in cotton ma- 
chinery, and an equal amount when profitably em- 
ployed in the manufacturing* trade can give employ- 
ment to half a million operatives. Surely the enabling* 
our cotton operatives to earn fair and remunerative 



14 



wages is as important as doing* so for the crews of the 
vessels carrying* the aforesaid merchandise ; and the 
vested interests of the millowners have as legitimate a 
claim to protection as those of the owners of either 
ships or cargoes. 

6. Should the Northern States desire to annex 
Canada, it will enable the Canadians, with our as- 
sistance, to regulate their south-eastern frontier at 
the expense of the States of Maine, New Hamp- 
shire, and Vermont, besides securing- for them, what 
they have been too long* deprived of, the harbour 
and town of Portland. Moreover, one of the pri- 
mary effects of a blockade would be to cause the 
Great Western Lake States to detach themselves 
from the United States, and either declare them- 
selves Secessionists or crave for permission to form 
part of Canada. Should the Canadians, however, 
decline to assist in their own defence, why should 
they be prevented establishing themselves under 
whatever form of government they may prefer ? 

7. There is only one sensible scheme for abolish- 
ing 1 slavery on the North American continent, and 
that is to satisfy the slave proprietors that it is their 
best interest to prepare the Negro race to support 
a well digested system of gradual emancipation \ 
and, combined with this, to circumscribe the limits 
of the territory on which slavery exists. This can 
best be done by enabling the Southern Confederacy 
to take its place as an independent nation amongst 
the powers of the world. What has made slavery 



15 



flourish in the Southern States hitherto has been 
the aid and protection afforded it by the cupidity of 
the Northern States. What will most speedily 
ensure its extinction, are the conflicting interests 
of the slave owners and of their non-slave owning* 
fellow citizens, together with the influence exercised 
upon the Confederacy by surrounding- nations, which 
are hostile to, and do not tolerate, this peculiar in- 
stitution. 

Finally, when a mansion is on fire, all friendly 
neighbours aid in extinguishing the flames. Eng- 
land has some obligations unfulfilled to the descend- 
ants of her earliest colonists, and to those of the 
African race whom she transplanted to their soil \ 
and there is no plan other than Recognition by which 
our American kinsfolk can be extricated from their 
mournful condition, and their fair broad land become 
again cc a joy of many generations." 



THE END. 




PAMPHLETS 



ON 

THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 




ANENT the UNITED STATES and the CONFE- 
DEEATE STATES. 

EECOGNITION or the SOUTHEEN CONFEDEEACY. 

EEFUTATION of FALLACIOUS AEGUMENTS anent 
the AMEEICAN QUESTION. 

JEFFEESON DAVIS, EEPUDIATION, and SLAVEEY, 
by the Hon. E. J. "Walkee. 

AMEEICAN FINANCES and EESOUECES, by the Hon. 
E. J. Walker. 

DESTEUCTION of the AMEEICAN CAEEYING 
TEADE, by Feed. M. Edge. 

ENGLAND'S DANGLE and hee SAFETY, by Feed. M. 
Edge. 

LECTUEES on the AMEEICAN DISEUPTION, by 
Alex. J. Bebesfoed Hope, 

EECOGNITION, by F. W. Gibbs, C.B. 

THE FOEEIGN ENLISTMENT ACT, by F. W. Gibbs, 
C.B. 

THE FLAG OF TEUCE, by A White Eeptjblican. 
THE WOES OF WAE, by A Sotjthebn Lady. 



\ 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




